Wang Meng’s Shadow Leads China Charge for Gold

China is without its most decorated Winter Olympian, Wang Meng, in Sochi, leaving the athlete known as her shadow to lead the country’s charge for gold in the Iceberg Skating Palace on Thursday.

Fan Kexin may be nicknamed “Shadow of Wang Meng,” but she is a world-beating short-track skater in her own right and China’s best hope at maintaining its dominance of the 500-meter sprint event that stretches back to Yang Yang’s gold in 2002.

Fan, a 20-year-old from northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, was the fastest competitor in Monday’s heats, crossing the line in a time of 43.356 seconds. A handful of others finished under 44 seconds, including 2010 silver medalist Marianne St-Gelais of Canada and bronze medalist Arianna Fontana of Italy. Wang won gold in the race that year and also in 2006, but she won’t be able to defend her crown after an ankle break last month ruled her out of the Sochi Olympics.

Wang Meng at the short-track World Cup final in Dresden, Germany, Feb. 10, 2013. She isn’t competing in Sochi as she broke her ankle in training last month.

Associated Press

Fan will compete in the second quarterfinal Thursday, along with Canadian Jessica Hewitt, Elise Christie of Great Britain and Emily Scott of the U.S. The quarterfinals start at 2 p.m. Sochi time (6 p.m. China), while the semifinals are at 3:10 p.m. and the final at 4:05 p.m.

The greatest threat in short-track skating, which is sometimes labeled Nascar on ice, is being taken out by a fellow racer. This was best demonstrated at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, when Australia’s Steven Bradbury won gold in the 1,000-meter race after all four racers ahead of him were involved in a spectacular pileup and he skated past to win. (Watch it here.)

But Fan isn’t China’s only medal hope in Thursday’s 500-meter race. Liu Qiuhong, also from Heilongjiang, and Li Jianrou from Jilin also were among the fastest qualifiers Monday, both finishing inside 44 seconds. And the team has already been buoyed by the performance Monday of Han Tianyu, who won silver in the men’s short-track 1,500 meters, the country’s only medal of the Sochi Games so far.

“Our team is always a united one, no matter who is injured. We bring his or her power with us into the competition,” China Daily quoted Fan as saying earlier this week.

Fan Kexin Fan speeds past Jessica Smith of the U.S. on Monday.

Reuters

Li will race in the fourth quarterfinal Thursday. She is up against 2010 medalist Fontana as well as Valerie Maltais of Canada and Shim Suk-hee of South Korea. Liu is in the third quarterfinal with South Korea’s Kim Alang, Jorien ter Mors of the Netherlands and Russia’s Sofia Prosvirnova.

China will be represented in another skating event later Thursday, with three athletes – Li Dan, Zhang Hong and Wang Beixing – racing in the 1,000-meter speed skating. Meanwhile, up in the mountains, Li Hongxue will be first out of the blocks in the ladies’ 10-kilometer classic cross-country skiing race.